Art Of Faith

"Seven bottles of light in a stone box"

2008-04-28T08:25:00.001-07:00

Friday April 25, Seattle, Washington, USA

Travelling north to Seattle feels like going on retreat.
The last few days have been extraordinary. My colleague John Wyver and I have met more than sixty young artists during whirlwind casting sessions in New York and Los Angeles. We've been trying to find two artists with sufficient bravura and artistic merit to feature in a forthcoming television series called Art Race. The premise of the show is simple: is it possible to cross the USA on a single dollar, surviving only on art? We think we've cast the right artists -- but that's another blog.

The two-and-a-half hour flight from Los Angeles passes smoothly and I arrive late at night in a rather shabby, smelly mid-town hotel. The establishment's only mitigating comfort (apart from my room's bed) is the wonderful view it affords of Rem Koolhaas's neighbouring Public Library.
I'm in Seattle, Washington to film the final building of the Christianity film, the Chapel of St.Ignatius on the Seattle University campus. Designed by local wonder-architect Steven Holl, the building is acclaimed as an incredible exercise in shade and light or as Holl describes it, "seven bottles of light in a stone box". Sniffily, I begin to wonder whether his claim might only be empty "architecture-speak"

Early next morning, cameraman Kevin and sound-man Tom have their own reservations. "Doesn't look all that from the outside," they offer helpfully. Maybe, maybe not, but blue skies are forecast and soon we'll have the opportunity of seeing the building in optimum conditions. We've given ourselves only a single day to capture everything we'll need and, with a couple of masses and a wedding to negotiate, the next few hours promise to be fairly full.

At hand to illuminate us is Father Cobb. A professor at the university, Father Cobb worked with Holl from the building's conception, and proves one of the most effective communicators of the entire series. He has an incredible knowledge -- and passion -- for the building. We're in good hands.
Father Cobb explains the building's genesis (from a water-colour by Holl) and then lays out the broad brush-strokes of the building's design -- the basic procession from grassy lawn to reflecting pool and on to the chapel itself. This is a natural flow which embraces the campus while simultaneously preparing the Catholic congregation for worship.

We learn too about the building's remarkable construction; how twenty-one separate wall-panels were set and then raised into place as interlocking tablets, all in a single day. And we the chapel doors made from Alaskan cedar; Holl has a remarkable skill at designing large heavy-looking doors which are in fact light as a feather to push open. These are beautiful, hand-carved creations.
It's not until we enter the building that the building's true beauty is revealed. Time magazine described Holl recently as "the best architect working in America" and the accolade appears justified when one has the time to spend in any of his interiors. I should confess to being an enormous Holl fan -- during two series of Artland, our recent cultural road-trip through America, we visited several of Holl's creations including the fabulous Bloch Building at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas. Each one has surprised me with its tireless invention and sense of play.
Evident in the St. Ignatius chapel are the seven "bottles of light" which Holl writes about: pools of light refracted through coloured windows, a sort of re-imagining of more classical stained-glass. And consistent with the Bloch Building, it appears impossible to count the interior surfaces -- there are no two alike in the entire space.

Father Cobb talks us through the stunning font, the confessional space and explains in detail about the way the light changes in the building. More than ten years on from the chapel's inauguration, he says that he's still surprised at how the building changes throughout the day, and indeed from day to day.
The afternoon comes and we have a wedding to film. The bride and groom have kindly allowed us to film during the ceremony and the run-up to the service too. I'm rather fascinated to see that this side of the Atlantic the wedding photos take place before the ceremony. I also can't help thinking that the wedding guests must believe we're the scruffiest, laziest wedding videographers they've ever seen (particularly as we have to wrap before the exchange of vows).
Finally, there's just the opportunity to sneak round the university's art collection. Father Cobb curates the acquisitions and has built up a modest, but impeccably chosen array which is presented to be as accessible as possible for the students. I leave campus with two lovely memories; firstly, the interior of the St. Ignatius chapel, and secondly a student in the campus canteen, tucking into his lunch, perhaps regardless of the priceless Chuck Close portrait just above him. (Seb Grant)

A long way from anywhere

2008-04-23T06:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday April 13 - Monday April 14, Cairo, Egypt
It was all going so well. Indeed it has been one of the most interesting day's filming I think I've ever done. But now it's past 11pm and the crew bus has broken down. We are 50km from Cairo, there's desert all around, and on the highway trucks thunder past. Their frequent horn blasts celebrate that they're on their way home -- and that we're not.

With our fixer Romaney and crew of four (our cameraman joins us at the location), I left Cairo yesterday morning. We first drove north, went under the Suez Canal and then down the east coast of the Red Sea before turning into the desert mountains and up to the foot of Mount Sinai. A journey of seven hours and numerous military checkpoints. Tedious as it is, there's some consolation in the notion that even well into the twentieth century making this pilgrimage took days and days on camels.

We've come to film at the Greek Orthodox monastery of St Catherine's, the oldest continuously inhabited Christian community in the world. Monks like Father Justin, our exceptional guide, have celebrated their faith here for some 1,700 years, rising each morning for prayers at 4.30am.
Sunday afternoon we recce the monastery, with Father Justin taking us around the compact site of the basilica, chapels, living quarters and a library crammed inside towering defensive walls. These were sponsored by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century CE and they include high on one side a wooden hut from which a basket could be lowered to the ground. Until the nineteenth century this was the only way in or out of what was effectively a desert fortress.
The next morning we start filming at 6am but many of the pilgrims who now come here in organised coach parties have been up since 2am, climbing to the top of Mount Sinai to worship and to see the dawn come up over the Red Sea. As we scramble around on the rocks of the valley (that's the crew below), we see the faithful straggling back, on foot and camel, ready to visit St Catherine's during the three hours that it is open to visitors on five mornings each week.
We go inside -- through a conventional door -- and spend the morning being taken around by Father Justin. Just before midday inside the main basilica we are privileged to watch, and to film, the veneration of the relics of St Catherine. What are believed to be the saint's skull and her left hand, both encased in silver reliquaries, are brought out for the faithful -- almost all from Russia -- to file past and to kiss. Many also kiss the icons of the basilica's iconostasis and all are given a silver ring by a priest to commemorate the moment. To me, this ritual, which has been taking place for a millennium and more, is simply unfathomable, but I deeply respect the importance that it has for all those taking part.
There's much that's remarkable about the building and the community: the presence of the Burning Bush, believed to be that which God used through which to speak to Moses; the presence alongside the main basilica of a mosque; the astonishing collection of icons, many of which are in the basilica but some of which are also displayed in a well-presented museum; and overall the extraordinary sense of sacred continuity.

In the afternoon we interview Father Justin in the library of St Catherine's, which contains one of the world's greatest collections of sacred manuscripts. The climate and the monastery's remoteness have ensured the survival of an astonishing number of precious manuscripts and printed books. Putting up lights here and moving around with the camera makes me as nervous as I've ever been on a shoot. I have next-to-no desire to be known as the person responsible for burning to the ground one of the world's great libraries. But all goes smoothly as Father Justin shows us an illuminated document from a Muslim Ottoman ruler granting St Catherine's the right to continue to worship within the Christian faith. He speaks movingly about the importance of the close relationship between the monks and the Muslim Bedouin with whom the monastery has lived and worked alongside for centuries. As he concludes with thoughts about how this coexistence has lessons for the world today, a mobile phone of one of the crew goes off. Grrrr. We re-take and all's well.

That is, until the breakdown nine or so hours later. Romaney gets on the phone, and although it doesn't seem as if there's an Egyptian version of the RAC, he has his son drive out from Cairo to rescue some of us and then a tow truck come for the bus. When we finally get to where we're spending the night, an ice cold beer goes down very well. (John Wyver)

Church of the Holy Fool

2008-04-17T12:32:00.001-07:00

Tuesday April 15 - Thursday April 17, Moscow, Russia
I arrive in Moscow after a four hour flight from London in the late afternoon. It is 3 degrees, raining, and very very grey, which somehow seems appropriate. At that time of day the 40 km journey by cab into central Moscow takes three hours. I learn on arrival at the hotel (my cab driver speaks no English and I realise I have no more than six words of Russian) that this is completely normal. Rush hour traffic in Moscow is now completely out of hand with the growing population and swelling numbers who choose to travel by car.

The next morning I walk to Red Square to meet our crew outside St Basil’s Cathedral – camerman Sasha, soundman Dmitri and – equally invaluably – fixer and translator Anna.
St Basil’s, built between 1555 and 1561 to commemorate Ivan the Terrible’s victory over the Tartar Mongols in Kazan, is actually an exuberant cluster of churches, with one in the centre surrounded by eight auxiliary churches each topped with a unique onion dome. A ninth was consecrated to Moscow’s “holy fool” St Basil and built to house his grave some twenty five years later. Since then the cathedral has been popularly known by his name.

The powerfully Eastern design, with its swirling extravagant array of rainbow colours and red brick towers is completely unique. “There is nothing like it, not just in Moscow, but in all of Russia,” Anna tells me. For her, Red Square is “like stepping back in time into the old Russia. It’s one of the few places where not very much has changed.”
We go inside the cathedral and are met by our interviewee, chief curator of St Basil’s, Liubov Uspenskaya. She graduated in art history in 1964 and has worked there ever since. She is serious and direct, “a typical old-style Soviet woman” Sasha observes. Certainly she has little time for the legend that Ivan the Terrible, on seeing how beautiful the cathedral was, had its architect blinded to prevent him from building anything of comparable magnificence for anyone else. She is equally dismissive of the tale that Stalin wanted it knocked down to facilitate troop movements out of Red Square. There is, however, more substance to Napoleon reputedly ordering its destruction on discovering that he couldn’t have it taken back to Paris with him.
Inside the cathedral is small and intimate, the separate dimly-lit churches connected by narrow passageways. A highlight is the beautiful blue and gold iconostasis -- a wall of icons and religious paintings separating the nave from the altar and a distinguishing feature of all Russian orthodox churches.
Mrs Uspenskaya laments that most Muscovites see only the outside of St Basil’s. Very few bother to look inside. They have a marvel on their doorstep and yet they travel miles to visit churches in Rome and Paris.

After the interview, we go back outside for some more exterior filming under the watchful eye of a man from the Kremlin. We are being charged a staggering £450 per hour for permission to film in Red Square. Even though we paid upfront for two hours, he seems restless after ninety minutes and suddenly orders us to stop. I protest at the obvious unfairness, but Anna says we must accept it. “You cannot argue with these people. They are very difficult.”
Time then for an extremely late lunch. I ask the Russian crew, out of curiosity, what they make of the Litvinenko poisoning in London. Dmitri, the sound recordist, tells me he has recently spent two weeks filming Andrei Lugovoi (wanted by British police on suspicion of the murder) at close quarters for a documentary. “What kind of man did he strike you as?” I ask. “Very clever, very successful, very well connected and utterly insistent that he is innocent,” Dmitri replies. Hmmm. It seems then as though we’ll never know. (Linda Zuck)

In the shadow of the Gherkin

2008-04-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday April 9 - Thursday April 10, London, England
I'm in the City of London walking round in circles in the shadow of Lord Foster's 30 St Mary's Axe (more commonly known as the Gherkin), and I'm struggling to find Bevis Marks, the oldest synagogue in Great Britain.

My poor map-reading is not entirely to blame. When the synagogue's building contract was signed on the February 12 1699 Jews were not permitted to build on the public thoroughfare, and consequently the synagogue was built in a discreet "open yard" just off what in now Bevis Marks Street.
Several calls to the cameraman later and we've found one another, the synagogue and also Maurice Bitton. Maurice is the building's curator and a lifelong worshipper at the synagogue. He recalls his Bar Mitzvah here as well as attending Schul with his father when he was only five years old. He now lives adjacent to the building and Bevis Marks seems very much in his life-blood. The interview is scheduled for the next day and today we have about five hours to film the building itself.
As is the case with buildings in the rest of the series, the synagogue looks unlike any other which we've visited previously. It possesses none of the rugged compactness of the Old New Synagogue in Prague nor the splendour of the Dohany in Budapest. Rather it has an elegance and reserve which feels distinctly Protestant -- an impression confirmed by the large bay windows which flood the building with natural light.

The explanation for this aesthetic could be down to the master builder, Joseph Avis, a Quaker carpenter who had previously worked with Christopher Wren on St Bride's in Fleet Street. But there are other influences too, most notably the Spanish and Portugese Great Synagogue in Amsterdam (which seats 1,500 to Bevis Marks' 500)
The interior is also very straightforward and includes the oldest Cromwellian benches still in use today, pleasingly crafted in dark oak. Dramatic candelabras plunge down from the ceiling and Maurice tells us that when lit, the effect can be breathtaking, particularly for evening weddings. We spend the day there and enjoy the building's restful aura and straightforward surroundings. (Perhaps Ian enjoys it slightly less, as he's the one doing all the work.)

The following morning and we've arranged to meet teacher Aysha Khanom and pupils from Halley Primary School who will be given a tour around the synagogue by Maurice. The children, perhaps a dozen in total, behave impeccably throughout the hour or so which we're with them, and ask the questions which many adults might shirk from: "Why do men and women sit in different parts of the synagogue? Where are the pictures of Jesus?" The children are mostly Muslim and they are respectful, polite and sensitive to this sacred place -- I can't remember filming with a more lovely or lively bunch of schoolkids. If anyone from Halley School is reading this -- they are a credit to the school.

Maurice too should be commended for admirably fielding the children's questions, and later on, some of mine. He knows the building inside out and has done a fair bit of television, not the least of which was taking the part of the Synagogue Beadle in the BBC's adaptation of Daniel Deronda. He offers a history of the building as well as explaining its role within the community. Interestingly, he says that a gentle revival is happenning. The synagogue has been rejuvenated by a young rabbi who is attracting many of the local Jewish city workers and once again the building is becoming popular as a regular place of worship.

It's our final location for the Judaism film and somehow appropriate. Masada, Budapest, New York, Czech Republic, Philadelphia, and now a building about 15 minutes from our offices. Or about two hours if you were to rely on my directions. (Seb Grant)

All about Cuthbert

2008-03-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

Tuesday March 25 - Thursday March 27, Durham, England

Associate producer Lucie Conrad joins the Art of Faith team for our shoot in Durham Cathedral:
The first thing that struck me when travelling up to Durham was how friendly Northerners are -- and how talkative! I spent the entire train journey trying to block out the voice of a fellow traveller recounting her life story to her poor neighbour as well as the packed train carriage. I must say I was relieved when I heard Durham announced on the tannoy. And then there was Durham Cathedral, towering over the city. I was here to join Ian to film the main features of the cathedral as well as to interview a member of its congregation.
When I arrived at the cathedral, having been taken there by another very chatty taxi driver, I was greeted by Ian and John, Head Porter at Durham Cathedral. John is quite obviously an old hand at filming and with his help and expertise our shoot went extremely smoothly.

We went first to the small Cathedral Museum which houses the remains of St Cuthbert’s coffin as well as other extremely valuable artefacts taken from his shrine. Durham Cathedral, you see, is all about St Cuthbert -- as I would find out the following day when we met our interviewee, Lilian Groves, Head Steward and a fountain of knowledge on Durham’s history. Lilian used to lecture at Durham University but retired in the early nineties. Since then, she tells us, she spends every waking hour at the Cathedral. As she begins to talk her eyes fill with tears and I can see that she is clearly deeply connected with this place. And once Lilian begins to speak it’s quite hard to stop her. There is so much information stored inside her that’s bursting to be communicated.
The most important thing she tells us is Durham’s connection with St Cuthbert. The Cathedral simply wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him. Cuthbert was originally buried in Lindisfarne in 687 CE, and was then declared a saint when his body was dug up eleven years after his death and found to be completely intact. A shrine was set up in Lindisfarne, but soon the Lindisfarne community came under threat from the Vikings and they decided to start a journey to find a new home for Cuthbert’s shrine. Eventually they settled on Dun Holm, the current site of Durham Cathedral.
It is only really when you get inside this glorious Norman building that you realise quite how large the cathedral is. The thing that immediately struck me was the beautiful proportions of this building and its enormous pillars, some of which are engraved in a very unusual manner. Lilian told us how these pillars were carved by highly skilled masons and put together like a jigsaw puzzle. They are hollow inside but full of rubble. Lilian’s theory is that these stones are in fact of the original Saxon church which was built to house Cuthbert’s shrine, as no rubble was ever found at the cathedral site. Lilian also has plenty of other interesting things to tell us, including the fact that Durham’s nave ceiling has the first stone vault in the world.
One tends to think of places of pilgrimage as medieval ideas but we soon discover quite how present this idea is at Durham Cathedral. Lilian stresses more than once that this is a working building, not a museum. And so it is with dozens of busy Stewards in their red and purple gowns taking groups of students or members of the public around their beloved building. On several occasions our filming endeavours were set to clash with such group talks. But not for a moment was there a doubt about who would give way to whom. In Durham the Stewards rule. But with the help of the charming John, the shoot went smoothly, and Ian and I set off happily on our way back to London. (Lucie Conrad)

Welcome to Toxteth

2008-03-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday March 16 - Monday March 17, Liverpool, England
When Ian & I first reached Princes Road Synagogue in the car, we went straight past it. It was only on the second drive along Princes Road that we realised we must have found our (unnamed) building. With rows of lofty Victorian terrace houses and deserted husks of houses of worship of various dominations, Princes Road in Toxteth, Liverpool, wistfully communicates a sense of a more prosperous era long since past. Nestled amongst all these houses and battered old churches, Princes Road Synagogue is initially somewhat unremarkable. The façade has character and contains notable elements reminiscent of the Dohany Street Synagogue or Central Synagogue New York, but on this run down street it seems somewhat muted.
Enter the synagogue, however, and a completely different visual experience is revealed. Princes Road Synagogue is like a small, beautifully vibrant and stylistically busy Dohany Street Synagogue. With one gallery and no central row of candelabras, the synagogue contains unique choir stalls perched above a stunning Byzantine-style Ark with a deep blue cupola, beautiful rose windows and an extraordinary variety of patterns on the walls and ceilings.
On Sunday we had little time to appreciate such detail however as we tip-toed around the galleries in order to film shots of a civic ceremony that was taking place below us that afternoon. The synagogue was packed with their congregation and various dignitaries of Liverpool, including the Lord Mayor and his entourage. We snuck around filming shots of a busy congregation and readings accompanied by melodious singing from the uniquely mixed choir, as conducted by our interviewee, Naomi Hoyland. In the last section of the ceremony Ian and I managed to creep up the small spiral staircase leading up to the choir stalls and grab some shots of Naomi conducting as the choir sungs their hearts out. Before we knew it the service was over and Eddie the caretaker was keen to lock up for the night.
Early the next morning we set about filming with Naomi, as she told us the story of how the synagogue came to be, who frequented it, its situation today and her own connections with the building. The synagogue had originally been created in the nineteenth-century for the wealthy Jews in Liverpool who wanted a grand synagogue to match their status -- the existing one in town was not opulent enough and anyway they wanted one nearer their smart homes. A competition was held and two Scottish architects, the Audsley brothers, won the commission. They had also built the Welsh Presbyterian Church on the other side of the street – which now very sadly sits as a Gothic shell, falling down and bordered up. The congregation all put in what money they could afford to fund the new building – as two plaques in the lobby attest. The Audsley brothers apparently travelled the world picking out beautiful and eclectic designs which they blended together for the interior of the synagogue. The congregation had never seen anything liked it and loved it!

Naomi Hoyland has attended the synagogue every Saturday since she was three years old. Her father and uncle had attended Princes Road since they were teens and when they discovered at the start of the Second World War that a bout of rhumatic fever counted them out of going to fight, they used their time wisely, acting as ARP officers and building up the Synagogue choir with members of their own family, including the very young Naomi. She and her cousin never left the choir and introduced their equally musical children to it from a very young age. The two of them now share the duties of conducting the choir and both are passionate about the survival of the choir, as well as of the building itself.
One of the most interesting moments during my interview was learning that the number of Jews in Liverpool is declining. All the children move out to Manchester and elsewhere. The ever-dwindling number of Jews makes it very difficult to maintain the synagogue (which is now a Grade I listed building) and sustain the congregation. It's for this reason that Naomi took on the task of synagogue tour guide, so that she can introduce to new people this wonderful building. She also showed me two beautiful lectern-chairs on the pulpit that her father had crafted for the synagogue several years ago, when he was 91. Seeing those two chairs and hearing about his life’s work for the synagogue, it gives me faith that Naomi Hoyland and passionate congregants like her are not going to let Princes Road Synagogue fall into the decline that has afflicted the other religious buildings on Princes Road. (Nonie Creagh-Brown)

"When I work, I believe in God"

2008-03-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday March 13 - Saturday March 15, Cote d'Azur, France

Two days in the south of France to film at one remarkable location whilst gale force winds and rain batter Britain. What’s not to like?
Vence, half an hour inland from Nice, is lesser-known that its close neighbour St Paul de Vence. It’s a real bustling town (unlike St Paul, which has become a medieval theme park overrun by tourist hordes and souvenir tat). Henri Matisse’s modernist Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary is on the hill overlooking Vence’s Roman walls. Uniquely, its creation was the first time that an artist entirely designed every detail of a monument, from the architecture to the furniture, the candlesticks and even the priest’s robes. As such it is a sacred art monument. For Matisse, “this work required me four years of an exclusive and tireless effort and it is the fruit of my whole working life. In spite of all its imperfections, I consider it my masterpiece”.

Artists have famously been drawn to this area in the hills above Nice since the 1920s and a heyday period saw Matisse, Braque, Calder, Leger, Picasso and Picabia amongst others dine regularly at a local hotel where famously meals were often paid for with canvasses.
Matisse settled in Nice in 1942 and a few months later, fearing a wartime evacuation, moved to Vence. He was 73 and in poor health recovering from intestinal surgery. For a couple of weeks he was looked after by a young nurse, Monique Bourgeois, with whom he struck up a friendship. She subsequently became a nun -- Sister Jacques-Marie -- and their friendship continued. In the local convent the nuns had no chapel and were using makeshift quarters in a garage with a leaky roof. When Matisse learned of this, after extensive discussions, he offered to design a chapel in the detail of which he immersed himself, beginning in 1947.
From the outside, the discrete chapel, used daily by both the nuns and the local community, can only be recognised by its blue and white roof tiles and wrought iron cross of crescent moons and golden flames. Inside, everything is white – walls, ceilings, doors, except for the yellow, green and ultramarine of the semi-abstract stained glass windows.

Most tourists only take a few minutes to visit the chapel, as it is quite small. But you really need to spend time in it, if you can, to experience the extraordinary way the sun floods through the windows, bathing it in colour as it moves round from the south-east to the south-west, creating changing patterns of reflected pools of colour on the white marble floor and the walls.
Our interviewee, Dominican Sister Marie-Pierre, still marvels at this changing play of light throughout the day and explains the use of just three chosen colours: blue, to represent the sea and the sky, green (nature) and yellow (the light of the sun and god). Crucially, the blue and green glass is transparent whilst Matisse agonised over finding the right opaque yellow glass before he was satisfied. Because yellow is associated with the creator and we cannot see God with our eyes, it would not have been appropriate for yellow to be reflected inside the chapel. The green and blue, however, reflect as green and violet, because intriguingly the red of the sun combines with the blue glass to form violet.
Sister Marie-Pierre tells us that when the chapel was consecrated in 1951 many of the sisters were at first deeply shocked by Matisse’s three ceramic murals, in particular by the Stations of the Cross on the end wall. These looked to them like badly scrawled images, but in time they got used to his radical drawing style. She also relates that Picasso was very jealous of his friend’s achievement. She doesn’t like to speculate on whether Matisse, a presumed atheist, became religious, quoting only the artist’s own reflections on his creative powers: “When I work, I believe in God”

She finds the chapel’s beauty, simplicity and serenity highly conducive to prayer. I ask her if she misses the decoration and trappings of a traditional church. “Why would I?” she replies with some bafflement. “We have everything we need here. Matisse really gave us a wonderful gift.” She is certainly right about that.

Filming completed, there’s just time for a drink at that hotel, the Colombe d’Or, to admire some more Matisses, amongst other great artworks, and to see photos of him on the hotel terrace from those extraordinary years. No culinary splendours to write about this time. We could only afford an aperitif, but I’m not asking for sympathy, as it came with toasted almonds, olives and top quality charcuterie. (Linda Zuck)

A "jewel" (and a Jimmy Jib) in Woking

2008-03-17T09:32:00.001-07:00

Thursday March 13 - Friday March 14, Woking, England

Kairouan, Prague, Budapest, Istanbul, Singapore, Jerusalem… Woking

Should I confess that both the cameraman, Tim Knight and I are steeled for disappointment after the thrills of previous weeks? After all, we’re driving to an industrial estate on the outskirts of Woking. It’s early in the morning, it's drizzling and it’s cold. We’re stuck in traffic on the M25 and our uncharitable mutterings feel entirely justified.
That is, until we turn into Oriental Road, Woking and catch our first glimpse of the Shah Jahan Mosque. The first purpose-built mosque in Europe (outside of Muslim Spain), the Shah Jahan Mosque is a delightfully modest, compact and individual building – Tim and I take the drive-way round the entire building and are charmed by its dimensions, colour and other-worldliness. We head off, in much better spirits, for that staple of crew-food, the egg sandwich.

Awaiting us on our return is interviewee, Brother Khalil. Treasurer of the Mosque Committee, local resident and a convert from Christianity, Khalil proves a really able communicator, almost a born presenter. We take advantage of a break in the drizzle and Khalil performs an impeccable on-camera introduction to the Mosque.
Built in 1889 by orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, the mosque (part of a greater Oriental Institute) was designed to help acclimatise visiting dignitaries from foreign Islamic communities, and to offer them a place to worship.

Leitner died ten years on and the mosque fell into disuse – until a visiting Indian lawyer, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, established an Islamic mission there. Daily prayers were commenced and soon an influential, articulate and passionate group of converts began to devote themselves to spreading Islam. One of the earliest converts was Lord Hedley who would later make a speech to the House of Lords reminding the British Government that there were more Muslim subjects than Christians in the Empire, and beseeching the Government to do a better job of representing them.
By 1924, there was a total Muslim population of 10,000 in Britain (mostly based around Woking). The population rocketed after the Second World War due to a large number of Muslim immigrants but conversely the influence of the Woking mosque declined as attention became re-focussed on the capital.

It’s a compelling story and it’s well told by Khalil. He talks to us outside the mosque and then takes us inside. He’s a great advocate of the building, describing it as one of the architectural “jewels” of Islamic art and I believe he’s justified. There’s something very pleasing about the building’s proportions and scale. The local worshippers are also very welcoming, and excited about what we’re doing.

We break for a late lunch and the afternoon is spent filming an in-the-car interview, partly to introduce a different quality to the film. It works pretty well but we’re concerned about the number of driving shots we have time to film (these will be cut around the interview). By the time we get round to filming some up-and-past car shots, the light is fading, it’s raining again and Tim and I are concerned about whether the interview will cut with the other images. I’m sure Holly, the editor, will let us know soon enough… in no uncertain terms.
The next day, and we’ve got the morning to film the mosque itself. We’ve even brought a toy. It’s a Jimmy Jib – a small-ish crane which can extend to over thirty feet and is often used to circle over studio crowds. We’ve tried to be quite spare with toys during the rest of the shoot; not only are they expensive but occasionally if the photography becomes too whizzy, the audience stops listening to the interviewee or looking at the building and instead becomes a little distracted by the snazzy moves.

That said, the Shah Jahan Mosque lends itself to the use of a crane – not only can one better appreciate the building’s design but one can also “locate” the mosque in its surroundings and, inside, get some extraordinary shots of the mihrab. If we’re careful, we think we can really lift the visuals of the mosque which might otherwise appear a little “flat” on a grey day.
Operating the crane is Arun and he’s ably assisted by an assistant, Jenny. It’s a remarkably skilful job and requires extraordinary precision, dexterity and control – the camera itself can be tilted or panned at the same time as the crane is being arced around or craned higher or lower. Add in controls of focus and exposure, and erm... the pressure of manoeuvring fifty thousand pounds-worth of camera within inches of walls, and I’m left in awe of Arun.

I’m delighted with the results, and even more pleased with Khalil’s interview – the Shah Jahan Mosque might not possess the visual splendour of the Dome of the Rock but it brings another, uniquely British flavour to the series. (Seb Grant)

"O Jerusalem, the holy city"

2008-03-11T04:08:00.000-07:00

Sunday March 2 - Thursday March 6, Jerusalem, IsraelA national carrier's check-in desk is frequently a microcosm of that nation, and the check-in desk for Israel's El Al Airlines at Heathrow is no exception: "Why are you going to Israel?", "For how long?", "Why have you recently been in Tunisia?" The questions continue, and then the X-rays and searches begin. My hand luggage is taken from me and only returned at the departure gate, and my bags are minutely examined. Fortunately, my father's instruction to "wear my smartest underwear" proves an unnecessary precaution.

It's all mildly irritating. and my schoolboy-before-the-headmaster over-politesse feels a compromise -- but it's a useful reminder of what I'll face in a few hours, and it's a small price to pay for visiting a country which has long been on my wish-list. The five-hour flight passes quickly and I'm met at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and driven to East Jerusalem. The journey takes just under an hour and our fixer, Sharon Schaveet meets me at the hotel.

Employing fixers is a somewhat risky business, and most production web-sites are flooded with the familiar request: "does anyone know of a good fixer in…(name of country here)". Find a poor fixer and the shoot can rapidly deteriorate into farce. Find a great fixer, and you'll start thinking that it's the best money one can spend on a production. Thankfully, Sharon is of the latter school. A wonderfully efficient tour-de-force, she allows nothing to defeat her -- police, soldiers, bureaucrats, crew-members, myself -- we're all cajolled, encouraged, charmed and threatened into line.
In an essential briefing Sharon warns me that the situation is particularly tense at the moment. Israel has launched a major offensive in Gaza and violence has spilled over into Jerusalem. Both Palestinians and Jews are extremely wary. It's going to be a fascinating few days.

My mission to Israel is two-fold. For the Islam film, I'm shooting perhaps the second most significant site (if we regard Mecca and Medina as one) in the Islamic world, the Dome of the Rock. And for the Judaism film, I'm spending a day at Masada, capturing one of the few remaining ruins of Second Temple Synagogues. In total I have three days.

Day One and we're blessed with sensational weather: an azure sky, a few clouds and no heat-haze at all. Perfect conditions. I'm picked up at seven in the morning and Sharon introduces me to the rest of the crew: driver Arie, director of photography Ofer and camera assistant Gabi. Later I'll meet the sound-man Nicholas. They're warm, relaxed and enthusiastic about the coming shoot.The Dome of the Rock is situated on one of the most contested sites in religious history -- a vast ancient platform known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary. In Islamic history, the Rock is the location for the Prophet Mohammed's encounter with the angel Gabriel and his ascension to Paradise, while for Jews, the Temple Mount is the foundation for their holiest of sites, the Davidic Temple.

Although governed by a ruling Islamic body, the Noble Sanctuary is nevertheless carefully monitored by Jewish police. The dynamic between the two nationalities at the gate is fascinating -- my absence of Hebrew or Arabic impedes any thorough insight but the uneasy truce is evident; there is much gesticulating and gesturing, some shouting, appeals for calm, much pointing at the crew and our equipment, occasional laughter and of course lots of guns.

Amid the stand-off is Sharon -- occasionally vociferous, mostly pleading. She's warned us beforehand that anything can happen at the entrance to the Dome of the Rock -- there are no guarantees that we'll be allowed to film, nor for how long. But she keeps on pushing. "She'll call the prime minister next," quips Ofer, awed by her persuasive prowess. She's been negotiating our access with both sets of officials for weeks.
And then suddenly, we're admitted. The crew is asked not to speak Hebrew and we're led inside the Dome of the Rock and into one of the most sacred sites in Islam, to the cave itself where it's believed Mohammed met with Gabriel. The Waqf or ruling Islamic officials have offered us an incredible privilege - filming permission here is very rare, and almost never with a large broadcast camera (we're shooting on HD), let alone a tripod.

We do not have a great deal of time but what we do film is remarkable. After twenty minutes we're hurried upstairs and once again given permission to film the interior of the Dome.We film what we can -- but one could spend days here. The tiling and mosaic glass is exquisite and the designs so varied and complex, mostly patterning but discernible are trees, flowers, vegetation and fruits. In the middle of the dome is the stone roof of the cave but extensive scaffolding hampers our view. There's not enough time -- the call for prayer is approaching and the next minute Sharon tells us that we have to leave the site. I protest, entreating her that we need time to shoot exteriors, but the decision is out of her hands. As quickly as we've arrived, we find ourselves outside the entrance gate.

It has not worked out quite as we'd hoped, although the interior access was remarkable. But without filming the exteriors, we don't have a film. Sharon is concerned too, and we decide to talk everything though over a coffee -- we walk down the Via Dolorosa. It's my first sight of street-level Jerusalem and I can't help staring: there are Armenian priests, Orthodox Jews, nuns, hawkers, bodyguards, soldiers and of course coachloads of tourists -- the mix of people is astonishing.
Once we've relaxed a little, Sharon says she'll work hard to convince both the Israeli policemen and the ruling Waqf to allow us access for the following day. She refuses to be drawn on whether it's likely but she'll do everything she can. In the meantime, we can spend some time sourcing a suitable roof-top to film the interview with our Islamic expert. We explore various options and eventually decide on the roof of the Austrian Hospice. It affords us a wonderful view of the Dome and we set for the interview.

Dr Marwan Khalaf is an expert in Islamic art and architecture and proves a gentle and knowledgeable interviewee. Among much else, he explains about the evangelistic role of the Dome of the Rock -- it was partly constructed to compete with (and surpass) other religious structures in Jerusalem, and he tells us too about the mathematical symmetry of the Dome -- 4 doors, 8 sides, 16 columns, 52 windows etc. It's a very constructive couple of hours and we end the day with some sunset shots from the Mount of Olives before a 6 o'clock lunch.

Day Two and Sharon has decided that the best thing to do is just to pitch up early at the Dome and try our luck. We squeeze in a sunrise shot first thing and then head to the entrance. Ofer and I exchange ideas about the routine which dominates much of filming -- "Hurry Up and Wait" -- and we shoot some general footage while waiting to hear news of progress. Sharon calls. If we come this minute, she thinks we can get in. She's right and once again we get access. Other crews don't fare so well -- there's a media ban in place and among others, the BBC are turned away.
One of the privileges of filming is the opportunity to look at buildings in significant detail, courtesy of a long lens. And the Dome doesn't disappoint -- the golden cupola steals the headlines but the windows, walls, even guttering are just as remarkable. Again it's a day of blue skies, and the structure looks wonderful. We could spend all day here, and another day too, but we've pushed our luck already and the governing Waqf have indulged our schedule to an incredible degree. We say our thank you's and leave the Dome of the Rock.

Except of course we don't. Just by the entrance of the Noble Sanctuary, two abandoned rucksacks have been identified as suspicious. We and our equipment are held at the gate as an explosives robot rumbles into action. We're ushered out of the sight-line and hear six muffled shots -- the sound of the robot shooting the packages. Predictably the rucksacks prove to be only that, but the situation doesn't help tension levels.
A coffee later, and we're filming street scenes, market scenes and Jerusalem establishing shots. Our final location for the day is the Western Wall -- often referred to as the wailing wall. It's one of those scenes with which one has become so familiar, but up close, the whole experience is of course far more vivid. We film right by the wall and I feel a touch uncomfortable at our proximity to the worshippers. Not so Ofer and, seemingly, not so the Orthodox Jews who continue, indifferent to our presence. The early evening is spent having dinner at Restobar. "Oh this place," remarks the camera assistant, Gabi, "you may remember, it was decimated by a suicide-bomber a couple of years ago."
Day Three and leaving Jerusalem behind us, we're driving alongside the Dead Sea on our way to Masada. Ever since seeing Peter O Toole in the 1981 mini-series of the siege, I've wanted to come here, probably along with many thousands of others.
The story of Masada is an extraordinary one. In 66 CE a group of rebels from a Judaic extreme sect, the Sicarii, surprised and overcame the Roman garrison at Masada. With cliffs rising 400 metres above the desert, the site offered a near impregnable natural fortress (complete with huge food stocks and its own well). In turn, the Romans besieged Masada, constructing a vast rampart which enabled the defenses to be breached. When the Romans entered the fortress in 72 CE, they discovered that all 936 inhabitants had committed suicide rather than face captivity. Dramatically symbolic, Masada is now Israel's second most popular tourist site.
Our focus for the day is Masada's synagogue. Not much remains - a few broken walls, pillars and the steps bordering the walls where worshippers would sit, pray and listen to readings of the Torah. A converted stable, the building is incredibly simple and pure; a rejection of the rich colour-schemes and ornate construction of the surrounding Roman buildings. Nevertheless, I find it beautiful -- concise, straightforward and modest.

Archaeological expert Avner Goren is our guide. He's a fabulous contributor -- experienced in the trials of television, he's both patient and charismatic, content to wait in the sun while we tinker with our set-ups. He draws a vivid account of the siege and is alive to contemporary parallels with Gaza. He also highlights the fact that for many Israelis, Masada is a symbol with which they no longer wish to be closely allied -- they don't want to be isolated from other communities or nationalities; instead they want actively to engage with them.
We film until 4pm and then catch the final cable car down the slopes. A few last sunset shots over the desert and we drive back to Jerusalem. One last supper and a flight home. At the hotel, I'm asked whether, for the journey to the airport, I'd prefer a Jewish taxi-driver or a Palestinian taxi-driver. Only in Israel. (Seb Grant)

Bella Italia

2008-03-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

Sunday March 2 - Thursday March 6, Rome and Ravenna, Italy
Sunday
Ian and I arrive in Rome in the late afternoon. What should have been no more than a thirty minute taxi ride from the airport into the city takes a staggering two and a half hours. The main route had been closed off because of an accident causing complete chaos. “Mamma mia! Tutto bloccato!” our driver informs us, and on several occasions along the way he crosses himself muttering under his breath whilst shaking his head.

Monday - Tuesday
We are here to film at St. Peter’s Basilica, which has entailed negotiating no less than three separate sets of permissions beforehand from London. Filming inside the basilica itself, filming in St Peter’s Square, and finally the right to put a tripod down just outside Vatican territory facing St Peter’s from a slightly greater distance on Italian territory.
The final paperwork and payments all have to be made prior to filming in offices in the Vatican (having first been vetted by the colourful Swiss guards), and then further away at the Comune di Roma, where it comically takes no less than three people to process, sign and stamp a six page document before handing it over.
I had forgotten how simply vast St Peter’s is. Conveying its enormous scale on film is almost impossible. On entering the building the eye is drawn down to the focal point of the interior, Bernini’s monumentally tall bronze canopy known as the baldacchino which stands over the altar. It's 98 feet high, the same height as a substantial building such as Rome's Palazzo Farnese, and yet it fits comfortably inside Michelangelo’s vast dome which rises above it.
TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRUM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM ... (You are Peter and on this rock I build my Church) ... reads part of the inscription of Christ’s words to Peter in gold lettering over 2 metres high around the base of the dome. Of course the pun doesn’t work in English, but it does in French, Italian and of course Latin. I look up musing on what the equivalent English first name would have to be. Rock perhaps, as in ... Rock Hudson? It doesn’t quite do it. (Diana famously called Paul Burrell her rock of course.)
The following morning our wonderful interviewee speaks movingly about what St Peter’s means to him. Monsignor Roderick Strange was a student priest in Rome for much of the 1960s. More recently he was a chaplain at Oxford University for some years, and has spent the last ten as Rector of the Pontifical Beda College in Rome.

When we have finished our interview outside we are accosted by a local busker who, for no apparent reason, seems keen to let off steam and rant for some time at us about Berlusconi amongst other things. It is a little difficult to disengage ourselves from him politely (he is like the ancient mariner), but he could of course have a point about Berlusconi.

Later that afternoon we leave Rome for Ravenna, a drive which takes over five hours, departing Rome in warm sunshine only to encounter snow and hailstones just three hours later on the final tortuous stretch of road beyond Florence.

Wednesday - Thursday
It is freezing in Ravenna and our hotel resembles a mortuary. Our interviewee, a local art historian, Verdiana Conti Baioni, tells me that it was once a mausoleum, which only goes to confirm the ghostly feeling of the place.
The Basilica di San Vitale, however, is more than worth the journey here and the sub-zero temperatures. It is a tour de force. Here is a legacy of 6th century mosaic work arguably without equal anywhere in the world. Images, almost certainly decorated by Greek artists, include the retinues of the Byzantine emperor Justinian and his belly dancer-turned-empress wife Theodora. Sex and power at the court of Constantinople. And the vibrant colours – the gold backgrounds, the rich green meadows and deep blue skies – are dazzling. We think of the period when these mosaics were done as the dark ages, and yet San Vitale was a breathtakingly original departure and is quite simply exquisite.
In contrast with the distinctive octagonal shape of San Vitale, the next morning we film also at San Apollinare Nuovo built only a little earlier but in the basilican form with a long nave and side aisles (one of which helpfully has a tall scaffold tower obscuring a large section for restoration work). After those of San Vitale, the mosaics at San Apollinare Nuovo are the finest in Ravenna. One of them depicts urban scenes of the city, a reminder that Ravenna was once the capital of the declining Roman empire for more than seventy years in the 5th century and was later an important outpost of the Byzantine empire. It’s hard to believe today that this city’s career was so remarkable. It declined slowly and gracefully in the following centuries to be overtaken largely by Venice, and indeed it’s perhaps because the city was little heard from for a thousand years that most of Ravenna's art was left in peace.
It is still inhospitably cold and windy as we leave, and I am looked at with disbelief when I tell the hotel that we will be returning to significantly warmer and brighter weather in London.

And despite the blog editor's strictures ("enough food already"), the culinary highlight of the trip would have to be, for those that are interested, a small family-run fish restaurant that we came across in Rome’s Borgo Pio. “You have discovered Rome’s best kept secret,” an obviously well-heeled fellow Roman diner tells me. There are photos on the walls of a plethora of Italian celebrity regulars past and present, including Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni. I’m not sure I should reveal to you where it is, but I could be persuaded.
(Linda Zuck)

2 days in Singapore

2008-03-03T22:09:00.001-08:00

Wednesday February 27 - Thursday February 28, Singapore
It's Wednesday so it must be Singapore. The excellent Julie Delpy movie 2 Days in Paris has brightened my 12-hour flight and I arrive at a sparkling Changi Airport.

The reason for my visit is a visionary piece of Islamic architecture, the Assyafaah Mosque (pronounced Ash-ee-far). Designed by Tan Kok Hiang, the principal partner of Forum Architects, it's a building which aims to converse with the traditions of Islamic architecture while simultaneously embracing the values and aesthetic of contemporary Singapore. Having spent much of last weekend filming at Istanbul's more conventional Blue Mosque, I'm intrigued.

The schedule is extremely tight. HD camera equipment is a rare commodity in Singapore and its consequent hire-costs mean that we'll have to shoot everything in a single day. The forecast is promising clouds, gloom and rain.

To steel myself for the next day, I meet up with an old university friend, Nick Handel. An advertising executive, Nick provides a few useful pointers to the Singaporean mentality -- "it's looking to establish itself as the Switzerland of Asia." "Here you wear your wealth on your sleeve." Certainly the high level of cleanliness, efficiency and countless shopping malls appear to reinforce his conclusions. Nick also kindly indulges my passion for cliché -- we head to Raffles for a Singapore Sling (overly sweet, overly red and overly priced, but of course you still need to order one).
The day of the shoot, and it's an early start. We've decided to employ a local crew rather than take Ian out with us and so at 6.15 am, Malaysian-born camerman Yaw, and the Singaporean driver James arrive at the hotel. We head to the Esplanade (part of Singapore's waterfront) to catch the early morning sun and film some establishing shots of the city. There's more sunshine than I dared hope, and three-quarters of an hour later we're driving to the north of the city to the Assyafaah Mosque.
The mosque is immediately arresting by virtue of what's not there. No conventional minarets, no dome and seemingly no sides to the construction. It feels inclusive, relaxed, informal -- as much social centre as religious building -- an impression confirmed in an enthusiastic welcome by the mosque's manager, Abdul Aziz Awang.
Yaw warns that we won't have the sunshine all day so we take advantage of some bluish skies to film wide shots of the building. It's an opportunity to examine the mosque with a little more care and to think through some further questions with our interviewee, the mosque's architect , Tan Kok Hiang. There's also the chance to meet Micky, the affable sound-man for the day. But of course it's all working a little too smoothly. Blue skies, methodical cameraman, on schedule...
In this case, it's sound which proves our undoing. A surprise for seemingly everybody, a women's conference has been organised for the morning and the Imam's voice is amplified throughout the entire building -- there will be no chance to film the architect on site. We're all disappointed -- particularly as we've just met Mr Tan and have found him to be passionate, charismatic and extremely well-versed in religious architecture. Fortunately, he's gracious and agrees to be filmed in the open air amid the heat and humidity.

Except that next door to the mosque, three pile-drivers have started their thunderous rhythm. Micky goes to the construction site to see whether they'll take a break, but to no effect. It's no win -- Mr Tan has to be away by 11.30 and we're left to choose between deafening amplification and the pile drivers. The pile drivers win-out and we film the interview outside.
Without wishing to flatter the architect (or the film we're making) too outrageously, Mr Tan proves a fantastic guide. He talks through the tensions of a non-Muslim designing an Islamic building. He explains about the absence of a dome (Middle-East tradition, and impossible to maintain amidst the rigours of the Singaporean climate). He enages us with his decision to embrace the Arabesque in much of the design and he's frank about the challenge of working with an artist to realise the single minaret. Chatty and charming, we enjoy a very good couple of hours in his company.
The rest of the day, we're filming details of the interior and it's an opportunity to see the mosque in use. I'm incredibly impressed with Mr Tan's design -- the ablutions space is sleek, stylish and beautifully achieved. The mihrab and sloping qibla feel modern and relevant and there is a community feel to the building -- a breeziness and lightness -- completely different to the other mosques I've visited.
The day rushes on. Yaw applies himself tremendously and takes infinite care over his framing and moves. We break for a quick noodle-lunch and then it’s another three hours of filming interior details.
6pm comes and we rush to Orchard Road, a sort of Singaporean Bond Street to film shoppers and brand-names -- it's just a notion that we might be able to contrast the Assyafaah Mosque with the commercialism of Asia's Switzerland. We'll see...

We wrap at dusk and I head to my friend, Nick's house for supper. It’s not a late night -- Nick's wife is heavily pregnant and I'm flying out early next day. A taxi is ordered and right there I have the smallest insight into life in Singapore. "Your taxi will be with you in exactly four minutes." Sure enough, four minutes later, the taxi arrives. Only in Singapore. (Seb Grant)

Mosques, minarets and meze

2008-03-03T13:22:00.000-08:00

Saturday February 23 - Monday February 25, Istanbul, Turkey
"You see these wires? They're connected to a bomb and I'm going to kill British people."

The man fixed his eyes on our cameraman.

"Good idea," responded our cameraman. "I'm South African."

This little exchange occurred in 2003, the last time Illuminations filmed in Istanbul. We were working on a BBC/Canada co-production entitled The World in Art and we had been accosted while shooting in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Five years on and we are filming there once again.
Istanbul is, without doubt, one of my favourite European cities: jaw-dropping architecture, incredible food (particularly the sauces, meats, fish and bread), a complex history -- and a generous, warm-hearted, proud population. We (Ian, Nonie and myself) are delighted to be making the journey. (Sorry, but this isn't just one of those paragraphs written to mitigate an uncomfortable opening story.)

Arriving late from Budapest, we are met at the airport by our fixer's colleague, Tunjay, and taken to our hotel just across the square from the mosque. One late meze supper later and we have agreed to meet early to film the sun rising from behind the minarets.
Time-lapse sequences (which can be sped-up to make time pass quickly) are frequently shot by resentful cameramen in isolated surroundings, at unearthly hours in challenging temperatures. Not this one. The hotel's breakfast room overlooks the Mosque and we enjoy the perfect view while stuffing our faces with exotic mueslis, fresh bread, juices and a few Turkish sweets. Oh yes, and of course there's the mosque...Frequently known by tourists as the the Blue Mosque because of its interior blue ceramic tiling, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the must-see attractions of Istanbul. There is little question of its remarkable contribution to the Istanbul skyline -- constructed between 1609 and 1616, its six 60-metre minarets challenge the dominance of its older neighbour, the Hagia Sofia.

All sorts of myths have grown up around the disproportionally high number of these minarets (most mosques have four or less). One of the most popular is that the architect Sedefhar Mehmet Aga misunderstood Sultan Ahmed I's instructions for the design and confused the word "gold" with "six" -- in Arabic the words are phonetically very similar. At the time the Sultan was accused of presumption -- only Mecca had six minarets -- but Ahmed I eventually pacified his critics by financing the construction of a seventh minaret at Mecca.
Expounding truth, and exposing myth, our interviewee for the mosque is Dr Feridun Ozgumus, a Byzantine expert who is able to talk in great depth about both the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and the Hagia Sofia. I should have been smarter about picking interview locations (just too much human traffic) but once we're settled in the interior of the Blue Mosque itself, I feel that the interview becomes far more focussed and intimate. Feridun is extremely open in talking about his faith and what it means to actively worship in this incredible building. He's also kind enough to explain the various rituals involved in the Islamic act of worship. Interview complete, there's just time to snatch some final interior shots before we lose the sunlight. We enjoy a late supper and retire early.

The next day, Sunday, and we spend the morning filming at the Hagia Sofia. The building predates the Sultan Ahmed Mosque by almost a thousand years and yet to my eye, it's the more remarkable of the two buildings -- and this despite extensive scaffolding supporting the main dome.
Perhaps I'm just more accustomed to an ecclesiastical aesthetic - the Hagia Sofia was formerly a basilica before being transformed into a mosque (and now a museum) but somehow the proportions feel more appropriate - and yes, I suppose I've grown used to appreciating something figurative in buildings of worship (there are some exquisite mosaics still left in the first floor gallery, and on the ceiling and above the mihrab).

We spend the morning filming there and hear rather a good story about the scaffolding -- there's a popular rumour that the scaffolding will never be taken away; not because the restoration process is endless, not because it's structurally supporting the roof -- but simply it's a means of preventing any discussion on whether the museum should be returned to a place of worship. It's an engaging theory.
The afternoon and our fabulous fixer, Munir, pulls off something of a coup; he arranges for us to go to the top of the central minaret of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and take some shots of Istanbul and the Hagia Sofia. It's a real privilege, although once we're gasping for breath on a pitch-black stairway, we feel slightly less grateful. The views though prove worth it -- and when we get our feet back on the ground, we're exhilirated. Finally, there's a dash for the ferry which takes us across to the other side of the Bosphorus - partly to get some shots of the skyline and partly to boast that we've visited Asia.
Prague, Budapest, Istanbul - it's been a sensational experience to film in all of these cities, but on the final morning, the real pressure kicks in… what to buy other halves at the end of a shoot? For a trip like this one, somehow the airport shop just won't do. (Seb Grant)

Filming and fine dining in Mitteleuropa

2008-03-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

Sunday February 17 - Tuesday February 19, Prague, Czech Republic
“This would be so perfect,” we agreed, “if one was here on a romantic break.” It was a twilit Sunday evening, an hour or so after landing, and Ian, Seb and I were wandering through the Old Town Square in Prague and marvelling at the extraordinary ancient buildings surrounding us. As it was we there for a shoot for the Judaism film.

Prague’s architecture is multifarious and fascinating. Romanesque, Baroque and Gothic buildings sit cheek-by-jowl with an Art Nouveau part of the city, the ‘Josefov’ area, which is the old Jewish Quarter. And right in the middle of the Josefov area is the Old New Synagogue. It is a wonderful, compact Gothic building from the 13th century and the oldest active synagogue in Europe. Josefov was a Jewish ghetto from the 12th century until 1848, when the Jews were granted permission to move out. By the turn of the century the old ghetto had become a slum and was in such a decrepit state that it had to be completely demolished, bar six synagogues, the old Jewish cemetery, the Ceremonial Hall and the Jewish Town Hall. These buildings now make up the “Jewish Museum” of Prague. They remain proudly in situ in the Jewish Quarter, although they are now somewhat dwarfed by the lofty Art Nouveau buildings that usurped their previous neighbours.
Contrary to what the constant trail of tourists might suggest, the Old New Synagogue is more than an important element of the “Old Jewish Town” tour. It is still an active place of worship and of gathering for Prague’s Orthodox Jewish community. Through filming with our contributor, Jakub Svab, we learnt about the history of the building and equally importantly about how it functions as a synagogue today. A tour guide and the Head of the Synagogue Assembly, Jakub was a great interviewee. He has attended the synagogue since he was a boy, had his Bar Mitzvah there and was married there. From his named seat he was in a more than qualified position to share with us the honour he felt to be worshipping in such an historic structure, but also to reveal the challenges of worshipping in a building put up 700 years ago.
Other highlights of our shoot here seemed to involve spending our limited free time sampling the local gastronomy. On our first evening in Prague, our main course included Czech beer, a whole roast duck for Seb, a gigantic portion of crispy “pork knuckle” for Ian and no less than two marinated chicken breasts for me. That of course was before the traditional selection of dumplings and cabbage. We swiftly learned that starters are not a necessity here.

Wednesday February 20 - Friday February 22, Budapest, Hungary
After two days in Prague we flew to Budapest, where our next location was the Dohany Street Synagogue -- a magnificent, unique synagogue built in the Moorish style, and currently the largest synagogue in Europe.
The sun was shining on our first morning there as we were let into the complex by a friendly maintenance man called Alexander. Alexander, who spoke no English, remained our companion throughout our filming at the synaogue, and by the end of two days we had developed quite an advanced level of dialogue with him, consisting of sign language, smiles and a sprinkling of German. On arrival Alexander let us enter the synagogue from the bimah, the elevated platform at its centre. As we went in all three of our heads craned up in awe. The building is enormous and even in the semi-darkness the structure, the ornamental designs, the patterns and the chandeliers were incredibly impressive. Casually, one by one, Alexander flicked on all the light switches and slowly the synagogue lit up to reveal its full glory.
During our first day of filming general views of the synagogue we decided to see if any of the inhabitants of the nearby high-rise buildings might allow us to film a shot from one of their windows. Several hours of climbing staircases and trying to doorstep slightly suspicious Hungarian homeowners later, we thankfully stumbled across a girl in a travel agent who kindly decided to adopt our top-shot challenge. Seb and I adopted what we hoped were our most charming and innocent facial expressions and without saying a word we followed our kind helper as she went from office to office and house to house, trying to find someone with an appropriate window.
Eventually she left us at a doctor’s surgery. The doctor spoke little English but what he lacked in linguistic finesse he made up for in mesmerising facial hair. He communicated something about his room being busy at the moment but we could get five minutes inside as soon as it became available. For the next twenty minutes Ian and I shared his waiting room with a group of sick Hungarians slightly nonplussed by our pile of kit and general air of expectancy. Occasionally the outside bell rang and I found myself opening the door and pulling apologetic facial expressions to Hungarians who came in and directed questions at me. Just as we were about to give up and seek out an alternative location, the doctor emerged from his room and gave us permission to film. Phew.
Our contributor for the Dohany Street Syagogue was a wonderfully warm and open rabbi called Robert Frolich. Brought up as an Orthodox Jew, Rabbi Frolich was very aware and honest about the varied architectural influences on the building and consequently some Jews’ criticism that the it resembles a church rather than a traditional synagogue. Indeed the Rabbi made it abundantly clear that nothing about the synagogue’s design is typical at all and he explained very interestingly how the church-like structure and Moorish design elements were introduced to make the building more accessible and familiar to a greater number of people. His ethos regarding leading such a large congregation was also surprisingly liberal, revealing that he was quite happy to have his massive congregation chatting amongst themselves during his services, just as long as they were there and happy to be part of the synagogue's community. Indeed, after spending time in that glorious building and with the rabbi it easy to see why they would want to stay that way.
The comedy moment of the Budapest trip would have to be our meal out on the second night. Ian and the Time Out Guide were charged with the task of finding us a choice restaurant at which to sample authentic Hungarian cuisine. We jumped into a taxi to go to our exciting surprise destination. Not only did our taxi smell curiously of wet dog, but our chain-smoking driver spoke as much English as we did Hungarian (none) and had no idea how to find Ian’s restaurant. “Small street” we just about deduced from some choice gestures -- but really his slightly baffled face spoke volumes -- which we finally understood as he pulled up. He dropped us off in Buda (we were staying in Pest), at a restaurant beside some tram tracks in a deserted middle-class suburb.

Outside lights on and tea lights expectantly lit on every table, the restaurant was completely empty. Our waitress spoke no English and simply giggled. At one point in her attempt to communicate mid-giggle she led us to believe we might have teeth in our soup -- until we realised she meant garlic, which of course is tooth-coloured! When our return taxi came to pick us up, we were pleased we’d eaten authentic Hungarian food in a non-touristy restaurant but we were just as happy that two more customers had arrived and our smiley waitress had some other people to giggle with. (Nonie Creagh-Brown)

"The protean shapes of faith"

2008-02-28T02:20:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 28, London
Seb, Ian and Nonie have returned from a filming trip to Prague, Budapest and, as one of Ian's fine photos illustrates, Istanbul. We will post from each of these locations in the next few days, but meanwhile here are some wise words about travel from Colin Thubron, from his recent (and excellent) Shadow of the Silk Road:

Sometimes a journey arises out of hope and instinct, the heady conviction, as your finger travels along the map: Yes, here and here... and here. These are the nerve-ends of the world...
A hundred reasons clamour for your going. You go to touch on human identities, to people an empty map. You have a notion that this is the world's heart. You go to encounter the protean shapes of faith. You go because you are still young and crave excitement, the crunch of your boots in the dust; you go because you are old and need to understand something before it's too late. You go to see what will happen.

Taj Mahal? Been there, shot that

2008-02-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday February 17 - Tuesday February 19, Agra, India
"Mehtab Bagh. Mehtab Bagh."

It's golden hour in Agra, India. The hour before sunset so precious to cinematogaphers the world over.

"Mehtab Bagh. Mehtab Bagh."

We're chasing the light, all too aware of the sinking sun. And we're racing in a minibus through streets crammed with tuk-tuks, carts drawn by bullocks, colourful lorries, battered buses and a swarm of motorbikes. Every so often our driver Ramesh leans out of the window demanding directions.

"Mehtab Bagh. Mehtab Bagh."
No-one seems to know how to direct us across the Yamuna river to the gardens with a view of the Taj Mahal at sunset. But somehow we find the bridge, a narrow, two-lane iron structure (with a railway above) built under the Raj and seemingly not mended since. Traffic hurtles towards us as we manoeuvre around anything that presumes to move more slowly than our camera car.

Then, after one wrong turning, there's the sign and then an official at a gate stopping us from taking the car any further. We jump out and hump the gear down to the river bank. Across what at this time of the year is little more than a stream ("you should see it during the monsoon!") is the magnificent mausoleum of the Taj Mahal, with soft sunlight rounding the curves of its white marble.
Truth to tell, we're just a few minutes too late. A glimpse of the Taj's domes from the road had shown them glowing a subtle orange, but now the sun has sunk a touch too low. Nonetheless the sight beats most tourist vistas and cameraman Nandu shoots happily, catching reflections and snatching the red globe as it sinks away.
I arrived in India yesterday morning, travelling on the same flight as Paul Merton. He has come for a 9-week shoot for a Five follow-up to last year's Paul Merton in China. Paul travelled first-class. I didn't. But then again I'm only here for three days.

Having met up with Ramesh, we do the four hour-plus drive to Agra. I was last in India (as a tourist) more than twenty years ago, but India remains India. We stop for a moment and there's a monkey on the car and a man wanting money for a photo. There are beggars at every traffic light, camels on the highway and an unrelenting soundtrack of horns.
Monday morning Ramesh and I drive to Fatephur Sikri, the extraordinary city built by Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century and abandoned after only 14 years. We meet our Indian crew, Nandu and Subu, and scope out the vast mosque here -- which is one part of the story I've come to shoot. The only frustration is that because a previous crew damaged the building in some way we're not allowed to use a tripod inside the courtyard. We try persuasion, tricks when we think the guards are not looking, as well as other means, but we have to make do with the camera on the ground, on ledges and Nandu's steady shoulder.
Another problem is that our contributor, a cultural historian who was to talk with us about the Taj Mahal, has had a bereavement in her family, and so we have to to find a replacement in Agra in the next few hours. The resourceful Ramesh makes it happen.
That evening there's the frantic drive to Mehtab Bagh and next morning we're at the Taj Mahal main entrance at 8am. What of course you never see in documentaries is the palaver of getting past security, especially if you have camera equipment. There are soldiers with guns everywhere. The kit is subjected to a detailed scrutiny and we, like every other visitor, are patted down for concealed weapons. The process, like so much in India, is both rigorous and ramshackle.

Inside, jostling with the crowds, there's an intensity to the way everyone needs to have their picture taken with the Taj. And there is perceived to be one perfect spot, dead centre, for which people constantly compete and for which -- when we manage to manoeuvre the tripod there -- we receive disapproving looks and not-so-subtle shoulder barges.
Filming is permitted only from a single wide platform just inside the entrance to the garden. Our two minders make sure we don't trespass any further forward, and then when we start the interview, we're only one question in before one of them challenges our permit. "No casting," it states on page three of the form but, the minder says, the interviewee is "casting". No, no, we all argue, "casting" refers to drama shoots. My plea that I have flown thousands of miles for this moment makes little impact, at least until Ramesh takes him away for a quiet word and an understanding between them. We film the interview.
Despite all this, the mausoleum -- completed around 1648 by emperor Shah Jahan in memory of cherished wife Mumtaz Mahal -- is a magnificent sight. Serene, glowing, glorious. Looking at it, staring at it on our monitor, and then walking around (beyond where the camera can go), none of the minor hassles mean a thing. It is, simply, a sublime achievement of faith and beauty. (John Wyver)

Mr Church and Senora Superwoman

2008-02-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

Tuesday February 5 - Friday February 8, Cordoba and Toledo, Spain
Tuesday, 10pm
It’s probably not the most auspicious start to a tightly packed three day filming schedule to find yourself pleading with the Guardia Civil at Malaga airport not to lock up your camera equipment overnight. We had meant to drive straight to Cordoba, but were to be thwarted. The customs officials had finished their shift for the day, and they needed to check our equipment to assure themselves we weren’t importing it from Tunisia into Spain. “We had a bit of trouble in Tunisia too,” our cameraman Ian Serfontein reflects, “but nothing as officious as this.”

Wednesday

Twelve hours later we find ourselves, after a night at the local Ibis Hotel, back at the airport negotiating with customs and finally being allowed to head two hours north to Cordoba.
We’re here of course to film the great Mezquita which dates back to 784 CE and was the most magnificent of over one thousand mosques in the city in Islamic times. It was enlarged in stages under successive rulers and was at one time the second largest mosque in the Muslim world. It is most notable for its giant red and white double arches and forest of over one thousand columns. I had arranged filming permission with one Rafael Iglesias (Mr. Church no less) who turns out to be far more pleasant and amenable in person than I had imagined. But lunch is an important business in Spain, and we are to come back at 3pm when he would be ready for us.

This still leaves us three hours to try to capture something of the disorientating mystery of the enormous warehouse-sized prayer hall. Unfortunately, whole parts of it had been sectioned off for building renovation with unsightly barriers. How also to convey the uniqueness of this building, which after the ‘Reconquista’ quite literally had had a highly decorated Catholic cathedral inserted into the middle of it, when the nave too is undergoing serious restoration works? “I don’t know if I mentioned about the scaffolders who arrived two days ago” remarks Mr Church casually. He hadn’t.
We are only allowed to stay until 6pm, soon after which there would be a service for Ash Wednesday. A large area of temporary seating for the congregation has been installed amongst the forest of columns in part of the mosque space as a makeshift cathedral in the absence of the real thing, spoiling, from a filming perspective, yet another section of the building.

These challenges aside, possibly the most irritating thing about filming inside heavily visited religious buildings has to be the constant flashing of digital cameras. Mr Church kindly stops tourists coming in after 5.30pm, and we have the luxury of the final half hour of the place to ourselves. This has to be one of the great pleasures of these trips: the enormous privilege of experiencing some of the world’s finest buildings in total peace and quiet.

Later, walking through Cordoba’s medieval backstreets to find a restaurant for dinner, we come upon an elaborate Catholic Ash Wednesday procession filling the air with incense.
Thursday
The next morning, after filming the large courtyard filled with orange trees we meet our first interviewee, the cathedral’s arch canon whose surname is Cumplido, which roughly translates as “complier” given that cumplir means to comply. I wonder whether in order to work at the cathedral you need to have a suitable surname.

Our elderly interviewee lives up to his name, and takes a hard line when asked if he sees the building as a symbol of interfaith understanding. Not in the least. After all, as he points out, the site still has the remains of the original basilica built by the Visigoths before the Moors conquered. Many of the columns and other building materials were taken from the remains of the basilica and re-used, and for him the building is a sacred Christian place. It is a cathedral and not a mosque, we are reminded. He has absolutely no time for the story of Emperor Charles V’s reported comment on finally visiting the cathedral after having authorised it to be built. “You have destroyed something unique,” he is supposed to have said, “and replaced it with something commonplace”. Did Charles V think he had made a terrible mistake? “That comment is a myth. He didn’t say it,” our arch canon tells us with absolute certainty and not a little irritation.

Our second interviewee teaches history at Cordoba University. He is a delightful man. Amongst other things he tells us that the double system of lower horseshoe arches and higher semi circular ones inside the mosque functions as a Roman aqueduct, with channels for rain water to be drained away from the roof. He is also very much of the opinion that if the cathedral hadn’t been built inside it, the building would have fallen to the fate of Cordoba’s other mosques, and would in all probability not have survived.

By now it is mid afternoon, and after driving across the river for a view of the mosque, spoiled by a large green crane directly in front of it, we leave Cordoba for the four-hour journey due north to Toledo. After an hour or so the car experiences some difficulties, and we find ourselves pulling into a garage in Guarroman, which is not anywhere you might normally choose to make a detour to. A “guarro” is a pig in Spanish, and is also used to mean “dirty old man”. Next to the garage there is, somewhat appropriately perhaps, a brothel with flashing neon signs of women in compromising positions. Fortunately the mechanics fix the car and thankfully we don’t have to spend a night in Guarroman which had been looking for a brief while like a distinct possibility.

We finally arrive in Toledo in time, thanks to the late Spanish dining hours, for something to eat before retiring.
Friday
The filming of two synagogues and an interview to accomplish today. Toledo is a beautiful walled hilltop town about an hour south of Madrid, and was one of the former capitals of the Spanish empire. It has a wealth of important historical buildings and enjoyed a golden age, known as La Convivencia, when Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together harmoniously. The tolerance was such that the religions almost blurred into one another and the two synagogues we have come to film bear witness to that.
The Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue, finished around 1200, has a plain interior dominated by horseshoe arches. It is a beautiful space, and feels more like a mosque than a synagogue. It was built for the thriving Jewish community by Moorish master builders and decorators. In contrast, the Transito synagogue, built some 200 years later, has no arches or pillars and is a large rectangular space with a richly decorated blaze of Hebrew inscriptions which integrate Koranic verses and Hebrew psalms and an intricately carved ceiling. Again designed and decorated by Islamic builders, it is now a museum of Sephardic culture.
Our interviewee, an elegantly dressed art historian at Toledo university, looks too young to be so accomplished an expert on the history of the period we are interested in. She tells us about the two different synagogues in some detail and explains how Toledo became a unique and important centre of learning and translation at this time, with prominent scholars of all faiths exchanging texts in philosophy, science, mathematics and theology. After the interview, she kindly offers to take us back to her house so that we can film a view of the old Jewish quarter from her roof terrace. Her front door is ajar and we walk up some steep stairs past her kitchen and living rooms. The building feels as though it must be at least 300 years old. “I need this large house as I have so many children,” she tells us. It hardly seems possible that she has any children at all. I ask her how many. “Seven” she replies. She has trouble remembering whether she is 36 or 37, and one by one her children arrive home, spanning in age from 13 to 1. They are all immaculately well-behaved and greet us with impeccable manners. She explains that it suits her very well to live within Toledo’s walls as it is completely safe – hence the front door which is always open. As we take leave of our host, who also tells me she is chairing a major commission for the government on tourism in Spain, I tell her she is a superwoman and I truly believe she is. (Linda Zuck)

The joy of production texts

2008-02-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

Thursday February 7, London

Just four of the texts sent to the production office during the past week (for the full stories, see the other blog entries)…

February 1, 12:23
Nonie from Chartres

Hi John, having a farcical morning trying to interview Rudy alongside 5 groups of restoring builders and now an organist! And it is pouring with rain… Challenge to say the least.

February 2, 15:50
Seb from Tunis

Luggage lost, equipment impounded. Ah yes, Africa, I remember, : )
February 5, 16:21
Ajay, after a conversation with Ian in Barcelona

Nothing 2 worry about, and he's on the case, bt Ian missed his flight connexion … yep.

February 6, 09.55
Linda from Malaga

Just got the gear out of customs after its unexpected overnight and setting off now for Cordoba. At least we'll get to film this pm.

"As perfect as the purest conceptions of the greatest workers in stone"

2008-02-05T22:33:00.000-08:00

Saturday February 2 - Monday February 4, Tunisia

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do"
and
“I appreciate you’re in a hurry, but you’ll just have to come back after the weekend and collect it all then”

In my lexicon of phrases-to-fret-about these two refrains have a top-five placing – particularly when in the first instance they relate to lost filming-tapes, and secondly, to our impounded camera equipment.

It’s Saturday afternoon at Tunis Airport, and cameraman Ian Serfontein and I have arrived in Tunisia to film at Kairouan, a modestly-sized town 200 kilometers south of the capital. Widely acknowledged as the fourth most important Islamic city in the world (after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem), Kairouan is home to one of the earliest architectural marvels of the Islamic faith, a mosque whose foundations go back to the 7th century.
Writing in 1889, the great French novelist Guy de Maupassant said of the site

"I know of three religious buildings in the world that have given me the unexpected and shattering emotion that was aroused in me by this barbaric and astonishing monument: Mont Saint-Michel, Saint Mark's in Venice, and the Palatine Chapel in Palermo. These three are reasoned, studied, and admirable work of great architects sure of their effects, pious of course, but artistic first, inspired as much or more by their love of line, of form, and of decoration, as by their love of God. But at Kairouan it is something else. A race of fanatics, nomads scarcely able to build walls, coming to a land covered with ruins left by their predecessors, picked up here and there whatever seemed most beautiful to them, and, in their own turn, with these debris all of one style and order, raised, under the guidance of heaven, a dwelling for their God, made of pieces torn from crumbling towns, but as perfect as the purest conceptions of the greatest workers in stone."

But neither my limited charm nor great French texts can move the customs officials. Our equipment remains captive.

Fortunately, help is at hand. The ominous sounding – but incredibly helpful – TECA (Tunisian External Communication Agency) smooths our passage; tapes are found, equipment is released, and we find ourselves in the company of Adel, our fixer for the next 24 hours.

We’re soon on the road – with our driver, Mohammed - and within minutes, Adel and I are engrossed in discussing Islam and Christianity. Adel tells me that a few months previously, a Swedish producer had come out for a few days filming with him, and had returned home a confirmed Muslim. I can’t claim impartiality, but as a committed Christian I’m delighted to be learning more about Islam and keen to exchange texts and world-views. The debate goes on and on and on.

A pause in the theological discussion is offered by a road-side stop, featuring delicious, freshly grilled lamb and local breads. Adel tells me that it’s not unusual for Tunisians to eat lamb three or four times a week. I’m overtaken with envy. Finally, we arrive at our hotel at about 10 am.
The next day and we’re up at 6am to film the sun-rise. Early morning fog frustrates our efforts but we do see the Mosque for the first time. It’s a sensational building -- elegant, straightforward, and possessed of immaculate scale and geometry. 145 metres long and 80 metres wide, the walls enclose a serene courtyard, bordered my arcades. At one end of the courtyard is the prayer hall and at the other is a single three-storey minaret.

Because neither Ian nor I are Muslims, we are unable to film within the prayer hall but our friends at TECA have kindly arranged for a cameraman from Tunis to drive down and help us out – I’m yet to see the rushes but I’m hoping that Ahmed will have captured the large wooden minbar (apparently, the oldest in existence, and dated at 862-63 CE) and the stunning mihrab – decorated with tiles, specially imported from Iraq.

After a couple of hours, Ahmed returns to Tunis and Ian and I are left to film the courtyard, exterior details and some further shots of Kairouan. It’s a memorable first day and that evening we enjoy another lamb dinner before retiring to bed early.
A brighter morning on Monday means that we film a beautiful sunrise over the minaret and then drive to the offices of Mourad Rammah, the conservateur de la Medina de Kairouan. Rammah will be our chief interviewee and proves a most charming, relaxed and enthusiastic host. Having travelled extensively to all of the key Islamic sites around the world he is able to contextualise Kairouan and talk with great authority and passion about why the building is so remarkable. Rammah speaks in good jargon-free French and then persuades the authorities to allow us to film at the top of the minaret – it’s quite a coup.
Above all, Rammah talks in straightforward terms about the design of the mosque – how the builders incorporated Roman and Christian ruins into the stone-work, how the minaret could double as a fortification, how the courtyard is graded to collect water, why there are so many columns in the prayer hall -- the focus should not be on the Imam. Without any sort of recce, it’s always a great relief to find such a good contributor and we film with Rammah until 2pm.

A late lunch and a further interview accomplished we drive out of town to capture a final sunset over Kairouan. The only sadness of the trip is, over another dinner of excellent lamb, watching Tunisia crash out of the African Cup of Nations, losing to Cameroon 3-2 in extra-time. Ian and I triy to console our hosts with England’s loss against Wales in the Six Nations. (Seb Grant)

Art Nouveau and the art of Gothic

2008-02-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Tuesday January 29 - Friday February 1, Paris and Chartres, France

Our France shoot -- to film the Art Nouveau synagogue of Agoudas Hakehilos in Paris and then the cathedral at Chartres -- started smoothly… but swiftly descended into an irksome farce. This was a bit of a portent of what was to follow over the next couple of days!
The early morning sky was clear and full of wintery promise when Ian Serfontein and I met at the bright and breezy time of 6 am at London St Pancras. We carefully loaded the camera kit onto our trolley and strolled purposely towards our Eurostar set for Paris, confidently navigating our way through the throngs of our dawdling fellow passengers.

It wasn’t long before we understood their slightly hesitant behaviour – a computer error had swapped all the numbers of the carriages around, and no one knew which was their carriage. After wheeling the kit up and down the concourse more than once, we eventually plumped for a carriage which we calculated must be number 12 (even though it said it was number 5). A bit of reading and a doze later and we woke up in France.

Our first impressions of the exterior of Agoudas Hakehilos, or Synagogue Rue Pavée, were good. In the still largely Jewish area of Le Marais in Paris, it is a modest, tall and thin building, designed by Paris’ herald of Art Nouveau architecture Hector Guimard. The synagogue is still a very active place of worship, and the centre for all Orthodox Jews in Paris. Entering the interior of the synagogue however brought both visual and cultural surprises.
Despite some knowledge of Orthodox Judaism it was still difficult not to feel a little bit taken aback by my first meeting with my main contact at the building, the President of the synagogue, Daniel Altmann. He extended his hand to shake Ian’s, but because of my gender he could not take mine, and initially he barely looked at me.

It was however a real privilege to be able to be allowed to see inside the synagogue, which is usually out of bounds to the public. The design and furnishings are intricate and lovingly formed creations by Hector Guimard. It is amazing to contemplate the amount of time it must have taken him to create the synagogue and to recognise how proud he must have felt to have authored every single detail of it – even the keyhole plates are in the Art Nouveau style!
Commissioned and funded by the Agoudas Hakehilos society, which was made up of Orthodox Jews of primarily Russian origin, the building is testament both to their arrival in France at the beginning of the twentieth century and also to their intention to make Paris their permanent home. Daniel Altmann talked with pride about how the community came to have their synagogue built by Guimard. By choosing the most eminent contemporary French architect the society created for themselves a building to be proud of and signalled their intention to become an important part of France’s and future.

Our departure from Paris proved as challenging as our arrival. We planned to catch a taxi to our hire car and to whiz over to Chartres in time for an early aperitif, but this was dashed when we learnt that the pesky Parisian taxi drivers had decided to strike that afternoon and blockade the city.

In Chartres our first day was occupied with filming general views in The Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, and the time was enjoyable and relatively straightforward. This impressive example of Gothic architecture is genuinely awe-inspiring and we were relieved that the previous night’s rain had cleared and a bright blue sky illuminated the stained glass windows within the cavernous and fairly dark interior. We also had a good amount of time to play around with our Wally Dolly – a small trolley on tracks which allows Ian to glide the camera through objects on location. Gothic artistry and big pillars make fantastic foregrounds for gloriously coloured stained-glass window backdrops.
Day two began with an early morning canonical mass in the Cathedral. This was a small gathering, but an important way to demonstrate that although sometimes it is hard to tell, this historic building is more than just a tourist site and is still a functioning place of living worship.

The rest of our day was spent interviewing Rudy Moriniere, who is in charge of the care and restoration of various elements of the cathedral, including the Triforium (upper gallery) and the Crypt. My interview with Rudy was supposed to only take an hour or two and in the end took over five hours to complete. We were constantly interrupted by the eruption of drilling, hammering and banging. The otherwise helpful Tourist Office and Centre of National Monuments had conveniently failed to tell us that one side of the cathedral was actually being restored in these months. Consequently, despite Rudy’s valiant attempts to influence those workers whom he knew to stop work for ten minutes or so, just as a favour to him, and our attempts to wait for silence in their lunch break (only to discover different groups broke for lunch at different times) we were repeatedly interrupted by noise. After we had returned from our first break to wait for silence and we had persuaded some stained-glass window restorers to pause their work for us, it was tempting to throw ourselves off the Triforium in despair when the organist arrived and started practising his scales. "Oh yes, here is the organist now! He has come to practise. He is usually here for two, or two and a half hours," chirruped our translator cheerfully.
Our perseverance, however, was worthwhile to get a glimpse of what this great building meant to Rudy. He shared his privileged access to the Triforium with us and his excitement was clear when he got up close to the columns and pointed out traces of medieval red and ochre paint, or speculated on all the legions of workmen who had come into contact with the same walls before him. Having been a timid youth, Rudy revealed the power of this building on atheists as well as Christians, explaining that his new adult self-confidence is a result of working within the walls of the Cathedral – he really feels that the majestic spirit of the building has emboldened and changed him.

After concluding our interview, while eating a traditional Chartres macaroon and taking a final tour of this incredible cathedral, all memories of annoying building works were forgotten. Soon it was time to head back to Paris for a last delicious French supper, before returning to the UK… taxi strikes and erroneous carriage numbering notwithstanding. (Nonie Creagh-Brown)

An early test edit

2008-01-31T22:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday January 31, London

Two days editing with Holly, one of the two editors we'll work with later, and we've assembled a rough, seven and a half minute sequences from the St Mary Redcliffe rushes. It's very raw but it's not bad -- and it's an immensely useful lesson for the filming to come.
Father Simon's interview feels very strong (we'll be lucky if we find many contributors as good as him) and some of the shots look great. Also, the footage of worship in the church feels very welcome. But we don't use the jib shots as much as we thought we might -- trying to put the interview as the soundtrack to these feels somehow wrong -- and Holly is concerned about whether we have enough static shots of the interior. Note to everyone not to neglect these in the buildings to come.

Plus the assembly reveals that you really have to work carefully to establish on the screen the space, the layout, the basic configuration of a building. Not that we ever thought it was, but filming architecture is far from trivial. (John Wyver)

"The goodliest parish church in England"

2008-01-29T03:57:00.000-08:00

Sunday January 27, Bristol, England

In fact what Queen Elizabeth I is supposed to have said, when she came on a visit in 1574, was that she thought St Mary Redcliffe "the fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England". We've chosen it as a representative of the glories of the English parish church. Glorious it certainly is, with the second (or third, depending on which architectural historian you believe) highest spire in the country and a soaring nave into which light streams from lofty windows. All over the church there are astonishing details: a porch built in an oriental style; a roof with more than a thousand stone bosses, each one individually designed; 15th century tombs; and connections through history with Handel, Hogarth and the boy poet Thomas Chatterton, who committed suicide in London at the age of seventeen.

We have Saturday to film the church, and this is the first day that we put the camera on a jib arm. This really smart piece of equipment allows us to raise the camera up to about 12 feet above the ground and also to swing it (carefully!) in arcs and circles. At one point director of photography Ian Serfontein and I discover that we do a 360-degree shot about which we get boyishly excited. The downside of the jib is that it takes a long time to set up and is tricky to manipulate, but we have the luxury of two full filming days here, and it unquestionably helps bring out the "goodliest" qualities of the interior.

On Sunday we film, as unobtrusively as we can, the 9.30am Sung Eucharist. Afterwards we shoot exteriors and many more details of the architecture before spending the afternoon with Revd Dr Simon Taylor who takes us around the church and speaks (beautifully!) about his sense of worshipping in such an architectural masterpiece. We are also graced on Sunday with a clear blue sky, and our only frustration is that we can't talk our way into a building site across from the church to take some shots from the balcony of a new block of offices. "Sorry, mate, more than my job's worth…"

The highlight of the two days is a boat trip on the local ferry that takes tourists and commuters around the Bristol docks. We want some shots of St Mary from the water to bring out its historical connections with the docks and trade. As we walk down to the boat stop at Saturday lunchtime the disappointing grey sky of the morning begins to break up and blue patches to shine through. By the time we're shooting, and despite the bitter cold, the sky looks glorious and the spire of St Mary is magnificent. Inevitably, as everywhere, people want to know what we're filming. "A series about architecture and faith," we explain, "for Sky Arts." Sometimes the response is a disappointed, "Oh we don't have Sky" but an older couple on the boat promise to look out for the programme. "We really enjoyed your programmes on the National Trust," they say. So we should be able to count on two viewers. (John Wyver)

First thoughts from abroad

2008-01-29T03:39:00.000-08:00

Monday January 21, New York and Philadelphia

The night before the series’ first shoot, at Central Synagogue in New York, apocalyptic blizzard warnings were being broadcast on the news, the radio and across the internet. The warnings informed us that travel was not recommended, ‘IF YOU MUST...KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT... FOOD... AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.’
So it was with trepidation that woke up on the morning of the shoot and with relief that I drew the curtain to see a snow-free, dismal and grey day outside. Day One of filming at Central Synagogue was glorious… a whole day of just myself and our cameraman Ross Keith at liberty in the Sanctuary. We were somewhat amazed - and grateful - to be allowed hours on end let loose inside this historic building with our camera.
On the second day we were joined by John, our soundman, for the shoot and the main purpose of the day was to interview the Senior Rabbi, Rabbi Rubinstein. Rabbi Rubinstein is a man whose name Major Giuliani made synonymous with ‘Hope’ after the Synagogue burned down in 1998 and was restored under his watchful eye, then rededicated just two days before the 9/11 atrocities. The Rabbi was excellent at telling us not only about the history of the Synagogue, but also about the decisions that he had had to take about keeping the restoration true to the old design, whilst also bringing it in line with worship in the twenty-first century, and simultaneously trying to future-proof it for centuries to come…
Days Three and Four of the US shoot were spent in Frank Lloyd Wright’s final architectural gem, the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, a suburb of Philadelphia. This incredible building was designed to look like a glowing Mount Sinai and we’d heard much about how its appearance changed in different light and weather conditions. A really early start found us in position at 06.50 and ready to film the sun rise over the Synagogue. We were both happy and surprised to be present for the arrival of a crisp but beautifully sunny day. The effects of the sunlight on the outside of the building just about outweighed the frosty cold of a Philadelphian winter morning.
Our next day and a half was spent filming the awesome building – arresting both in its exterior and interior - whilst also marvelling at some of the impractical design elements that Lloyd Wright has prescribed for the Synagogue. The entire Sanctuary, for example, (which seats over 1000 people, so isn’t small) is carpeted in light sand-coloured carpet, to represent the desert of Sinai. Conceptually great, but not so convenient for the Synagogue which has to clean it regularly and replace it every couple of years!

We also filmed an interesting early morning Torah reading, with a surprisingly full congregation for 7.20am and a very diverse congregation. This service was overseen by the Senior Rabbi Glanzberg-Krainin who also gave us a fascinating tour of the Sanctuary and an insight into how it works on a day-to-day basis as a place of worship.
By the end of our stay in Philly we’d not only had a thoroughly enjoyable time at Beth Sholom, but we’d also had two tremendous and memorable breakfasts at a roadside diner we discovered. Who could resist our irrepressibly smiley waitress, Frahanna (which she told us means ‘Happy’ in Arabic), when she insisted we tried the Southern speciality of ‘grits’? Grits is a cornmeal dish, a bit like slushy white polenta and surprisingly, we found ourselves enjoying it. In Philly the snow also caught up with us, but luckily just as we were getting our final shots and about to drive off into the speckley distance and back to New York. (Nonie Creagh-Brown)

So just how worried are we?

2008-01-29T03:29:00.000-08:00

Thursday January 10, Islington, north London

As well as recces, there is a pile of other preparations to make: visas and hotels, pinning down access to places and finding contributors, arranging insurance and equipment, pulling in other members of the production team. At present we are planning to film in the UK, USA, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, Syria, Iran, India and Singapore, all before Easter.

We negotiated access to most of our sacred sites before Christmas, but there are one or two late choices still to pin down and inevitably problems come up with one or two of those that we thought were fine. St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow begins to look flakey because, our local fixer explains, of the forthcoming elections in Russia. And then we run into difficulties for filming at the Chapel of our Lady of Rosary in Vence.

We hoped to finish the Christianity film at the exquisite chapel designed and decorated by Henri Matisse for a house of Dominican sisters near Nice. The convent itself is welcoming and the Matisse estate give permission but it proves impossible to work out an appropriate and affordable arrangement for rights and permissions with DACS, the copyright society that collects reproduction fees for artists.

To date, losing the Matisse chapel is our only disappointment in the planned schedule. Even so, the logistics at this stage feel a touch overwhelming. To better prepare ourselves, we watch together some films that have touched on this territory before. There can be something quite consoling about a collective viewing of someone else's documentary about the subject you're working on, especially if it was made a few years ago. Apart from anything else, you can make a note of the spectacular shots which work and promise yourself and your colleagues that you can do better than the rest of what's on the screen.

We look at parts of the series "Heaven on Earth", six half-hour programmes made with the presenter Christy Kenneally by Tile Films in 2003 and at Wag TV's "Divine Designs" series with Cambridge academic Paul Binski. Both series visit two or three of our sites, although they treat them far more as places of architectural interest than as contexts for religious belief today.

Another reference point is the recent David Dimbleby series "How We Built Britain". Among the things we take from this is that a seemingly limitless budget for helicopter shots in a wondrous thing and that buildings look a hundred times better in sunlight framed against a blue sky dotted with white clouds. We of course are filming not at the height of summer in most of countries but in the winter months with a light that will be pale, grey and even. One more thing to worry about. (John Wyver)

Tomorrow the world, but today… Woking

2008-01-29T03:25:00.000-08:00

Friday January 4, Woking, England

If you are setting out to make three ambitious documentaries about art, architecture and faith, with HD filming in sixteen countries, where else to begin but Woking? At least that's where Nonie Creagh-Brown and I go a couple of days after New Year to Britain's first purpose-built mosque.

Surrounded by an indisutrial estate on the edge of Woking is the Shah Jahan Mosque which was built as part of Wilhelm Leitner's Oriental Institute in 1889. As the mosque's website explains, "The purpose of the Institute was to enable visiting dignitaries from India to stay and study in culturally sympathetic surroundings. It also enabled Europeans being posted to India to learn the language and culture." It's an entirely surprising and beautiful building in the strangest of surroundings, but importantly it remains today an active centre for Islamic worship and study.

The Shah Jahan Mosque is one of 27 buildings that we have chosen to feature in a series of three films about the art and architecture of the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We're setting out to explore the cultural riches of these traditions but also to attempt to understand aspects of these faiths in the world today. So we want to see the sacred buildings not only as architectural wonders but also as places of lived faith. At each site we hope to find a contributor to the films who can tell us about the history and art but also about what the church or mosque or synagogue means to them in their life.

Our recce on a dismal, rainy Friday afternoon goes well, and we agree to return early in March to film. We will not have the luxury of visiting in advance the locations where we're filming abroad, so in early January we use trips to Bristol, to Brick Lane and the City of London, and to Cheadle in Staffordshire to think through not only the specific possibilities (and challenges) of these places but also how we are going to approach shooting in general. (John Wyver)